


The Berlekamp-Massey Algorithm

by CyanideBreathmint



Category: Ex Machina, Midnight Special, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Blowjobs, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Self-Indulgent, Smut, and other delightful side effects of psych meds, beware the christmas spirit, handjobs, heisenberg's uncertainty hard on, kylux adjacent, nice middle-aged episcopal church ladies, sevsmith, slight embarrassment and mortification, soft nerd love, sweet nerd lovemaking, there is going to be a lot of it in this one, they play D&D, unprotected sex between two committed monogamous lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-04-27 12:42:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14425650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanideBreathmint/pseuds/CyanideBreathmint
Summary: Paul Sevier and Caleb Smith go to Chicago to visit Paul's mom for Christmas. Can they keep their hands off each other while she's in the next room? (No, they can't.)---Content warning: Slight embarrassment squickThis one picks up right after the end of Linear Feedback Shift Registers, it is literally the next day.





	1. Heisenberg

**Author's Note:**

> I know I've been slow in writing, but I've been fighting an ear infection for a month, because I'm allergic to the first and second line treatment antibiotics for ear infections, FML. I also got admitted to UT, so I'm actually busy like whoa getting my application sorted and my housing application in, yay.

It was ten degrees Fahrenheit in Chicago, and the biting wind made it feel like two. Faced with this weather Caleb Smith was very glad that his new boyfriend was simultaneously tall, broad, and cold-resistant. Paul Sevier made an admirable windbreak, and Caleb was content to huddle in his shadow at his side after they got out of their rental car and stepped up to the apartment building proper. 

Caleb himself wasn’t any kind of wimp regarding cold weather — he lived in Long Island and was used to freezing winters - but freezing was just that, the thermometer hovering around the neighborhood of thirty-two F. The Chicago wind, on the other hand, was fairly intent on making him its bitch. The late afternoon sun shone down cold and austere through heavy layers of cloud, the sky that deep bruise gray that foretold snow and soon, and there was a sharp clean scent in the air to back that promise up. 

“How do you live in this?” he asked Paul as they hauled their suitcases and carry-on bags up the stairs. 

“I don’t feel it as much as you do,” Paul mused, bringing up the rear. “More insulation, probably.”

“If we ever get lost in the Arctic I’m sticking close to you,” Caleb said, his nose and ears stinging still from the cold. “You’re a handy windbreak, probably a good sleeping bag warmer, and if all else fails I can live off your carcass for a long-ass time.” 

“That’s so sweet,” Paul said. Caleb could not see his face, but he heard the grin in his voice. 

Paul’s mother lived on the third floor of this building. He knocked once at a door identical to all the others, save for a large holly wreath hanging from a sticky-backed hook on its front. The door opened before he could knock again, and a gently rounded woman of middling height stood in the doorway. Her eyes were the same dark hazel as his, but her neatly bobbed hair was a frizzy, slightly mousy brown, and she stepped aside to let them in as she greeted them. 

“Paul!” she cried in delight, “it’s been so long since I’ve seen you, I hope you had a good flight. Get inside and get that coat off so I can see if you’ve been eating properly. And you’re Caleb, I presume. Paul hasn’t been telling me enough about you.” 

The interior of the apartment was warm and cosy, and a sweet spicy fragrance rose into the air and billowed out past Caleb to drift into the cold. Cinnamon, allspice and ginger, orange zest and cloves and cardamom. Underneath the sweetness was the rich savory smell of cooking beef. Good. Caleb had hoped for an early dinner tonight. Their flight out to Chicago had been plagued with turbulence, and it had left his belly too unsettled for food until they had landed at the airport, and then their first priority had been to rent a car and drive here.

“Is that your mulled cider, Mom?” Paul asked as he entered the apartment and then stepped aside to let Caleb in. 

“Of course it is,” she said, “and I also made your favorite peppermint bark yesterday. I worked a half-day today, so I didn’t have time to bake any cookies. They’ll have to come out of a box for now.” 

Caleb left his suitcase on the floor beside him and swung the door shut, then noticed a large door snake that had been pushed aside when the door had opened, nudged it into place with the toe of his boot. “Hi,” he said afterwards, feeling slightly uncomfortable. Paul dropped his own bags to the floor and took his mother in his arms, hugging her tightly for a few moments before he let go.

“Mom, this is Caleb, my boyfriend,” Paul said with a brief quaver in his voice, “Caleb, this is my mother, Elizabeth Sevier.” 

“You can just call me Liz, if you’d prefer,” she said, her eyes alight with joy, “most of my patients do. Now get those coats off, sit down, and let me feed you something. Dinner’s not ready yet, but I can get you some snacks and some cider.” 

Caleb was only glad to comply. He shrugged off his peacoat, took off his knitted scarf and hung both up on the coatrack beside the door, sat down on the saggy green couch. A huge long-haired gray cat leapt up from the armrest, its yellow eyes bright with alarm. Caleb held his hand out to it, but it declined to sniff and jumped off the armchair to hide itself somewhere else in the apartment. 

“That’s Dusty, short for Dust Bunny. He hates everyone except for Mom,” Paul said as he sat beside Caleb, his weight making the springs beneath the upholstery fabric creak a little. Caleb leaned immediately into the solidity of his shoulder, relaxed a little with the close contact as Elizabeth brought a tray loaded with cookies and three mugs of mulled cider to the coffee table. She put it down, and then took the armchair so she could look at the both of them while they talked. 

“It’s very nice to meet you, Caleb,” Elizabeth said with a fond tilt of her head, after a few moments of gazing. “I actually haven’t met any of Paul’s boyfriends since he went to Boston for grad school, so I assume you’re either very brave or acceptable enough for me.” Her good humor made both Paul and Caleb laugh a little, and she capped the joke off with a little wink. 

“I, uh. It’s an honor,” Caleb said as he lifted his own mug of mulled cider, found it a little too heavy to hold without provoking more hand tremors. He put it back down before he spilled hot sugary cider all over himself.

“It’s not because you’re more acceptable than anyone else I’ve dated,” Paul laughed softly, shook his head once. “No, the timing just never worked out for the others, and most men I date aren’t comfortable with meeting my mom this early in a relationship.” 

“So you’re the brave one,” Elizabeth said. She let her gaze linger over Paul, as though rediscovering her son anew, before she turned again to Caleb.

“I don’t really think of myself as brave,” Caleb shrugged uneasily, and Paul’s hand closed gently on his shoulder, reassuring, comforting. Caleb left his right hand on Paul’s left thigh, marveled at himself briefly. He would normally not have been comfortable doing this in front of someone else, but Paul’s mother seemed not to care at all. 

This was a safe place, like his aunts’ home, and Caleb started seeing reflections of his aunts in Elizabeth’s gaze and warm smile, the soft consideration she had for their comfort. “What do you do?” Elizabeth continued. “At work, I mean.” 

The question was something he expected to have to answer, and he felt a little more certain with Paul’s closeness. “I’m currently between jobs,” he said, “and I’m considering going back to college for a graduate degree. I have some savings, so I’m going to take my time, but I am - was, I guess, a programmer.” 

“I was going to say you could probably talk shop, but Paul really can’t, can he?” Elizabeth said. “Unless you used to work at Fort Meade as well.”

Caleb shook his head briefly. “No, I worked for Blue Book out in Long Island, but startup culture can be kind of toxic, you know? And I want to do more with my life than just sit in an office pounding at a keyboard for eight to twelve hours a day.”

“And you can’t tell me any more about what you’re currently doing, right, Paul?” Elizabeth said, turning her attention to Paul. He had inherited more than her eyes - they shared the same chin and cheekbones, and the edges of her ears poked out through her frizzy hair. Her face was broader than Paul’s though, without that lupine intensity, and Caleb wondered what Paul’s father looked like. His parents were divorced, Caleb knew, but that was all he knew. 

“I’m probably still going to spend most of my day at a desk, really,” Paul said, which was not the absolute truth, but Caleb knew how it felt to want to reassure a parent, a guardian, a loved one. He nibbled on a piece of peppermint bark, found that it had been made with alternating streaks of dark and white chocolate that gave the broken pieces the look and texture of real bark. Each mouthful was filled with the crunch of peppermint candy and toasted almonds. “It’s good, isn’t it?” Paul asked him after he finished his first piece and picked up another. 

“It is,” Caleb said after he had swallowed his mouthful. His cider was now cool enough for him to drink safely, and he left the peppermint bark on top of a paper napkin and sipped slowly from his mug, holding it to his face with both his hands. 

“Oh, that reminds me,” Elizabeth said, “I’m having an early dinner tonight because I thought you might be hungry, time difference and all. It’ll be meatloaf, mac and cheese, and cabbage with bacon. I hope you like all that, Caleb.” 

“That sounds good, yeah,” Caleb said. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten meatloaf that hadn’t come from a supermarket heat-and-eat package. Aunt Jennifer had fed him very well during his two weeks staying with her and Aunt Sharon, but she hadn’t made meatloaf. 

“I’ll have to check the meatloaf in the oven, and start the mac and cheese now,” Elizabeth said as she collected the empty mugs from the coffee table, “so why don’t you two go put your things in the guest room and make yourselves comfortable? You look like you could do with a nap, Paul.” 

“I might,” Paul agreed. “What time do you want us out for dinner?” 

“Oh, 5, 5:30 PM,” Elizabeth said with a wry, knowing smile, “none of this will be ruined if it waits, so take your time.” 

_Did she just_ — Caleb thought, glanced at Paul and saw the mortified look on his face. _Yes, she did. Paul’s mom just implied that we could just go in the guest room and fuck like bunnies while she’s in the kitchen here._ The few lascivious thoughts he had managed to cling to through the cold and the turbulence shriveled abruptly, withered and rolled off into the cobwebbed recesses of his mind.

—

The guest room was exactly as Paul remembered it from his last visit here. The bed was the same one he had helped her wrestle home from a thrift store when she had finally been able to afford a bed frame after moving out from the family home. They had been sleeping on mattresses on the floor until then, and Paul had spent a month and a half sleeping beside her in that bed until someone gave her a sofa bed that she put in the living room. She had upgraded to a nicer bed two moves ago, but she had always been too frugal to part with this one, scratched veneer and all. 

Caleb dropped his suitcase and carry-on bag at the right side of the bed, which he preferred, and then threw himself bodily onto the mattress with a sigh of contentment. “Okay. I am more tired than I thought I would be,” he said as Paul sat down on the left side of the bed to undo his bootlaces. 

“You’ve had two flights in two days, and you had to get used to sleeping next to me last night,” said Paul. He kicked off one boot, then the other, and swung his long legs up onto the bed so he could lie down. 

“I like sleeping next to you,” Caleb said. Paul couldn’t see him properly, not when he had just taken his glasses off, but he could hear the quiet, appreciative pleasure in Caleb’s voice, felt something within him warm and expand through his gut in response. 

“I’m glad to hear that,” Paul said as he put his glasses down on the nightstand. “I’ve been told I have pointy elbows.” 

Caleb laughed at that, just a huff of air. “Yeah, well, I have pointy knees and elbows too. But you’re just so solid next to me? Like, I know when you’re there absolutely because of the way your weight displaces the mattress. I dunno. It’s a bit weird sleeping next to someone who does that for once.” 

“It must be,” Paul said, although he hadn’t found it odd the times he’d slept with men who weighed more than him. Caleb was still feeling his way around the context of a queer relationship, though. It was oddly charming, vulnerable, and it left Paul wanting to indulge him greatly, as he did right now. He rolled over to tuck an arm over Caleb’s slender waist, their bodies pressed together spoon-wise, and he felt Caleb stiffen against him. At first he thought that Caleb didn’t want the intimacy, and began to pull away, but then he noticed the tilt of Caleb’s head, the angle of his neck out the collar of his shirt.

“Oh God,” Caleb breathed, and Paul squinted to see better what had horrified him so much. 

“Is that —“ he began to ask, and then rolled around and groped for his glasses just to be sure. The glasses didn’t quite help once he saw the items clearly. His mother had left a bottle of personal lubricant and a box of condoms on the nightstand.

“Oh my God, Paul,” Caleb giggled in a blend of embarrassment and discomfort. “I know she’s trying to be supportive of us, but I think there’s a point where it’s too much.” 

“I’ll say.” The lubricant was a nice brand, one that came in a clear glass pump bottle with an umlaut over the product name. The condoms were micro-thin ones. They were a brand that Paul himself preferred for partnered sex, but their sizing ran small and the regular ones did not fit him. _Caleb might be able to use them, but I’m not sure he wants my mother knowing what kinds of condoms he uses._ “I’ll have a talk with her after dinner,” Paul said. 

“I don’t want to know how much your mom knows about your sex life now,” Caleb said with a bleak giggle as Paul lay back down on the bed. 

“Not much, actually.” Paul dropped his glasses on the nightstand and rolled over again to hug Caleb, had to adjust the covers as they shifted from the movement and crept off his waist and hips. “I get the feeling she actually went and asked someone else what to get.” He answered the rhetorical question seriously and literally, knowing that it would reassure Caleb.

“Like… who?” Caleb asked after a few frozen moments of thought, as Paul lay back down to look up at the ceiling. 

“She’s been trying to set me up with the sons, brothers and nephews of her co-workers at Northwestern Memorial, so maybe one of them,” said Paul. “Maybe that cute, very out orthopedic surgeon whose phone number she obtained on my behalf. Or she went into a sex shop and waited patiently until she could grab a salesperson to ask. She’s not really a Google sort of woman.” All three scenarios seemed equally plausible to Paul, and he laughed nervously, simultaneously mortified and touched at how his mother was willing to step out of her comfort zones for his sake. 

“Well,” Caleb sighed as he settled himself back down against the mattress, “I don’t think we’re going to need them right now, since I mostly just want to sleep.” 

“Me too.” Paul found himself oddly relieved at that. It wasn’t as though he didn’t desire Caleb - he had been wanting to do unspeakable things with him since he had found that deliciously naked selfie in his text messages some time ago. Paul wanted to leave gnaw-marks on Caleb’s skinny, narrow hips, press his mouth to the gasp and heave of his belly. Caleb had been half-lying in bed in the photo, his hand around his own cock with his back arched, and the image had left Paul thinking very hard about calculus so he wouldn’t embarrass himself in training that day. 

It was just that he didn’t feel like it was a good idea, not with his mother on the other side of the thin wall. Paul knew from experience that this bed always creaked as though it were suffering. He had been woken by his mother’s tossing and turning, after all, in the time they had shared it due to necessity. “She’s not going to be offended when you talk to her about this, right?” Caleb asked after a few thoughtful moments had passed.

“No, she won’t,” Paul said. He rolled over, pressed his mouth against the back of Caleb’s neck, against the bump of his spine through the fabric of his shirt. Paul’s mother was not the kind of person who became angry when gently corrected, and she always meant well. 

“Good,” Caleb said, and Paul felt the word vibrate against his own chest as he slipped an arm around Caleb’s flank again. “I really don’t want to piss your mother off as my first act in our relationship.” 

“I think she’s actually more afraid of scaring you away than you are of alienating her. She’s wanted me to settle down with someone for the longest time now,” Paul said with a brief chuckle. Caleb’s soft red-gold hair smelled incredibly good — it was not just the smell of his shampoo, which was the regular stuff you could get at a grocery store. No, it was the scent of _him_ beneath the artificial perfume, that primal, unique blend of salt and musk that made Paul’s breath short and his balls tighten and ache.

“Is that a proposal?” Caleb asked before he ground the soft shallow curve of his ass against Paul’s hardening cock. The sensation provoked a gasp in him, an instinctive thrust upwards against that yielding flesh. 

“Do you want it to be?” Paul asked Caleb. He let his hand wander lower down, his fingers spreading across Caleb’s stomach, but no more. He was content to lie like this, aroused though he was. The flight had taken enough out of him to make him unsure of whether he’d be a particularly good fuck right now, and he wanted to give Caleb the best of himself. 

“Not yet, I think,” Caleb said with a soft, happy sigh. “It’s only really been two days.” 

“Mm.” Paul settled himself back down, just glad to feel the rise and fall of Caleb’s belly under his palm. 

— 

Neither Paul nor Caleb slept all the way through the next two hours. They had catnapped, woken up to talk and kiss and simply revel in the proximity to each other as the short winter day guttered out beyond the curtains and window. Then they had drowsed again, safe and warm under the covers, bodies pressed together. This was intimate on a level that Caleb had very rarely experienced. He thought back to a girl he dated in high school, Clara. They had never gone past second base, but Caleb had been completely happy to just linger on the sofa with her while they free-associated for what felt like hours. He would have invited her to the prom dance, but her father wound up having to move to the Bay Area for a job, and he took the family with him. They had tried to keep the relationship alive through text, chat and email, but the distance was far too much, and they eventually drifted painlessly apart. 

There was a sleepy what if brewing in Caleb’s fuzzy mind. What would have happened, had she stayed for that last year of high school? Would they have been sweethearts? Would he have applied instead to PSU instead of Cal Tech and MIT? He imagined himself next to her now, imagined her his age, and was relieved that the image still invoked some bittersweet joy. He had worried earlier on that he had only started to like and desire Paul Sevier because women had started to frighten him, after his experiences with Ava. 

Another part of Caleb’s mind pointed out that he hadn’t really been a popular person in high school. He was liked, and nobody had bullied him, but he had never had many friends, especially after his parents had died. Therefore he hadn’t really had the chance to meet a guy he could have liked then. Cal Tech was a sausage-fest, sure, but it was also a college full of nerds, and there was a certain unspoken homophobia in geek circles, born out of insecurity and toxic masculinity. That would have turned him off more than anything else. Most of his classmates at Cal Tech hadn’t been too toxic, but the common assumption that the STEM field was solely for white educated males annoyed and frustrated him enough that he didn’t really mingle in university. He worked hard, got his degree, and got out. 

So it wasn’t that he was turning gay out of an aversion to women, Caleb concluded. This was more a belated discovery of bisexuality because he had finally found a man whose personality and physicality appealed to him, who was also interested in him.

Caleb felt the rhythm of Paul’s breathing change, felt him stirring sleepily as he lapsed back into a half-waking state. “You’re awake,” he murmured, his voice fuzzy with sleep. 

“I was just thinking about things,” Caleb said. He rolled over to face Paul and stare into those intense eyes in the half-dark, adjusted the covers while he did it. 

“Mm,” Paul grunted thoughtfully, “what about?” Caleb reached up to caress his narrow jaw, found himself running his fingers through that thick, slippery hair.

“Us,” Caleb said at last, after a few moments of silence. Paul’s hair felt like silk under his touch, and it shone like it too. It was almost how ridiculous how pretty he was. “How I wound up with you, really. If someone went back in time and told me, a year ago, that I would be dating one of the most beautiful men on the East Coast I’d probably have laughed. Not too hard, mind. It’s never really been a bad thing to me. It just wasn’t something I ever thought about.”

Paul laughed gently, but he did not reject the compliment. “It’s never too late to figure out who you really are,” he said softly, seriously. “As long as you’re still alive there’s still a chance.” 

“Yeah. And I’m not all that old, either,” Caleb said with a soft sigh, “so I haven’t wasted that much time.” 

“You haven’t wasted your life, Caleb,” Paul said, and Caleb trusted him as he had since the day they had first met, in that hospital room three time-zones away. 

A minute passed in silence, and then another as Caleb found his courage. “I’m a little worried, though,” he said, nerves blooming high in his belly despite the safety and comfort of his present situation. 

“What about?” Paul asked. His voice had gone from somnolent to alert, and it relieved Caleb that Paul was willing to take him seriously.

“Well,” Caleb said, searching for the right words, “you know already I can’t drink much, but that’s not really a big deal. Sometimes I find it hard to actually, uh, tip over the edge. It just doesn’t happen. Other times I just don’t have an erection. I can’t tell when it’s gonna happen, it’s sort of on and off. It’s like Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Hard-On.”

Paul planted a tender kiss on Caleb’s chin, followed it with a brief kiss on the lips. “That’s not unusual with antidepressants. It’s not going to be a problem with me. There are so many ways to express desire and intimacy that don’t require penile penetration. I suppose it’s a bigger issue for straight people, because the conception of sex in that case is usually vaginal intercourse.” 

“Yeah,” Caleb said with growing relief, “most other things don’t count, you know? I mean, I know they do, that’s just the usual thing you get told and assume is true.”

“I’m sure we’ll both find something we’re both comfortable with.” Paul was so solid and reassuring like this, but then he was probably one of the most calming individuals on the face of the Earth. “I’m not so sure what I can do about your inability to come, though.” 

“The anorgasmia?” Caleb said with an awkward half-shrug, “Yeah. It’s kind of led me to experiment a bit, and it’s weird, but sometimes I don’t need to get off. It’s good enough just having enjoyed myself. It’s like my perception of pleasure has changed.”

“Well, your orgasm is about 70% your brain and 30% the rest of you, so it’d make sense that psychiatric medication would be able to alter that,” Paul said thoughtfully. “I don’t think there’s a right and a wrong way to fuck, as long as we’re both okay with it, and we both have a good time.” 

“I was half expecting you to break this off when I told you,” Caleb said with a little sigh as he buried his face against Paul’s chest, inhaled the scent of his skin and deodorant, the smell of his soap all mingling with the fabric conditioner on the sheets. 

“That’s why you didn’t tell me last night?” Paul asked gently, pressing his mouth to Caleb’s forehead. 

“Yeah,” Caleb said. It was so good to be held like this, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt protected in a lover’s arms. The default assumption was that he would protect and comfort, but not receive either in return. 

“Well, this isn’t something I’m unfamiliar with,” Paul said, casual, practical and _there._

Caleb felt the anxiety slacken in his chest, attenuate, melt away. “Good, because I might want to practice uh, being quiet, a bit.” 

“With my mom on the other side of the wall?” Paul asked Caleb, just a little slyly. 

“That’s why we have to practice more,” Caleb said as matter-of-factly as a grin spread slowly across his face. 

“Point taken,” Paul said, his own smile matching Caleb’s in width and intensity.

Caleb crawled to his knees and pushed the covers aside, shifted to half-straddle Paul. There was something incredibly alluring about having Paul’s strength and breadth beneath him, passive and all his for the moment. Caleb put his right hand over Paul’s heart, felt the thump of his pulse increasing as he leaned in for a long, slow kiss that made Paul arch up under him. 

“Mhm,” Paul hummed, barely audible, and then shuddered as Caleb shifted his position slightly to grind insistently against his hardening cock, and Caleb felt a rush of heat through his face, the exposed skin of his forearms like the ring of a gas stove igniting —  _whoosh_ — in his consciousness. 

“Is that something I should keep doing?” Caleb murmured before Paul reached up and tangled those fingers in his blond-red hair, tugged him down for another hungry kiss. 

“For now,” Paul gasped softly as they pulled apart for breath, “it’s good for now.” Paul had started to tilt his hips up in rhythm with Caleb’s movements, and they rocked together in growing arousal as their mouths met again and again. Paul had begun to ruck the hem of Caleb’s t-shirt upwards, and Caleb registered the cool air against his heated skin, inch by inch in slow degrees. 

This was something Caleb had spent a little time fantasizing about during the two months they were apart, and he was amazed at all the tiny details he never thought to think up — the sweetish taste of Paul’s spit, or the shivery way he ground himself up against Caleb’s hips. This was different, but it was also utterly real, and the fact that they were together and touching, learning what felt good for each other, filled Caleb with joy. Caleb laughed softly against Paul’s neck, his mouth pressed against the soft spot behind his jaw, and then he gasped as Paul reached up to fumble with his belt buckle and run his palm slowly against the underside of his half-hard cock. 

“Fffu — “ Caleb breathed, and then bit down on the curve of Paul’s neck, tasting his salty skin as Paul’s clever fingers tugged downwards on the zipper of his jeans. 

“Careful,” Paul whispered, panting against Caleb’s ear, “you don’t want to bite me too hard.”

“No?” Caleb laughed, soothed the toothmarks in Paul’s neck with his tongue. 

“I’ll wear the marks of your teeth proudly, but I yelp like a puppy, and we’re supposed to be quiet,” Paul continued, a desperate note entering his voice as Caleb reached down in imitation of his movements to stroke him through his trousers.

“Yeah, yeah that’s fair,” Caleb said, with a flush of pride and something unnamable welling up in the depths of his belly. Paul wanted Caleb to bruise him, to mark him, and the thought of Paul returning to Quantico, where he had been training, with a fresh bruise over his shirt collar was arresting, utterly arousing as his recalcitrant cock shivered to full hardness at last. 

“You really want to bite me, huh?” Paul asked. He had tugged Caleb’s jeans lower on his hips, had been stroking him softly through his underwear with maddening gentleness. 

“Oh, hell yes,” Caleb said, letting his breath caress the shell of Paul’s ear. “I want to mark you up so that everyone knows who you’ve been with and what you’ve been doing. Suck a big bruise into your neck right there, above the collar line.” Paul shuddered wordlessly in response, and Caleb watched him lick his lips as he breathed heavily, his pupils huge from endorphins. 

“I don’t want to wait any more,” Paul whispered as he reached up and began to roll Caleb gently over. “Right now I just want your cock in my mouth. Is that okay?” Paul was eager, so much so that he was forgetting to treat Caleb gently, but Caleb didn’t care. Those strong fingers yanking his jeans further down, pulling down on the waistband of his underwear only excited him more, and he reached experimentally out to close his fingers in Paul’s hair. Paul did not pull his head away, only let Caleb guide his face upwards with a gentle tug. 

“What about you?” Caleb asked him, and then shuddered as Paul planted a wet, lingering kiss on the tender skin of his belly, felt Paul’s mouth working slowly downwards to the bright tangle of his pubic hair. 

“We’ll figure that out later,” Paul said, “I just want to taste you so badly.” With that he took the head of Caleb’s cock in his wet willing mouth, and Caleb keened in response, remembered to put his left hand over his mouth to muffle the noise. His world dwindled away as he closed his eyes against what he saw — the light-gray walls seemed too bright for him all of a sudden, and all he wanted to know was the touch and sound of Paul’s careful ministrations, the slick glide of his mouth and the hot velvet of his tongue. 

Caleb kept his fingers closed on Paul’s soft hair, realized that it let him track Paul’s movements without sight. Each bob of his head was telegraphed from his scalp to Caleb’s fingertips, zinging up his arm to reach his spine, and Caleb bit down on his own left hand as he bucked carelessly up into Paul’s mouth. 

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t ever received a blowjob before, but Paul had an advantage that Caleb’s ex-girlfriends didn’t have. He knew himself what felt good and what didn’t, and that had allowed him to refine his technique to heights that Caleb hadn’t really thought about. It was becoming impossible for Caleb to think through all this lust and pleasure, and he could only mewl softly against his own skin as Paul teased him gently with his teeth, pulled back all the way to the flickering tip of his tongue. 

Caleb was thrusting helplessly into Paul’s mouth now, his movements mindless as he climbed to a fever pitch, and then a switch flipped somewhere in his head and his wayward cock decided to take a nap then and there. “Fuck,” he breathed, as Paul pulled his face gently away, “fuck, I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Paul asked, climbing back up to his level to murmur hotly in his ear. Paul’s breath on Caleb’s neck sent a faint thrill through him, in the pit of his belly, but it was a delightful frisson and no more. It was better for Caleb to just look up into Paul’s flushed face, to study the bones of his face and the unruly waves of his hair. 

_He’d fuck me like that if I wanted,_ Caleb thought, _and I want him to._ The solidity of Paul’s body stretched over him like this was a turn-on in as of itself. “I really wanted to come in your mouth.” 

“And I’d have let you,” Paul said with a gentle kiss on his cheek, “but it’s okay. Did you have fun?” 

“It was amazing,” Caleb said, a lazy grin returning to his face as Paul kissed his way up his hairline, and then back down, to nip gently at the skin exposed at the collar of his t-shirt. 

“Good, then that’s all that matters to me,” Paul murmured against Caleb’s chest, and they lay there for a few seconds, holding each other and catching their breath. 

“What about you, now?” Caleb asked Paul as he registered the insistent press of Paul’s own erection on his thigh, moved himself slightly so Paul could rut up against him. 

“I’d love to come in your hands, or against you,” Paul gasped against Caleb’s shift in position, “but only if you want me to.” 

“Not in me?” Caleb asked him, teasing slightly. 

“Not until you’re ready,” Paul said, the words slightly muffled against the skin of Caleb’s neck. 

Caleb reached up to run his fingers through Paul’s hair, tipped his chin back in utter compliance. “Good, because I’m not sure I am.” 

“That’s fine,” Paul was now nibbling the side of Caleb’s neck, a faint tickle that made him giggle softly in between kisses. “Would you mind if I fucked you between your thighs?” 

“No,” Caleb said, wondering at his lack of nerves. “It’s not something I’ve done before, though.” 

Paul pulled his face away from Caleb’s neck and looked him in the eye, long and slow and slightly cross-eyed without his glasses. “Let me show you,” he said seriously. 

Caleb was content to lie passive and blissed-out, his skin thrumming and sensitive to every touch, every tiny draft through the ventilation as Paul stripped him of his clothing. The air was blessedly cool against his hot skin, and watching Paul undress fully was even more of a treat than it had been last night. Paul had been self-conscious yesterday, worried about Caleb’s own boundaries, but now he was hungry, eager, and the look in his eyes took Caleb’s breath away. 

“You look like you’re going to devour me,” Caleb said. He let his gaze linger on Paul’s magnificent cock, wondered if his own fingers would close completely around its girth. 

“I would, if you wanted me to,” Paul said as he climbed back into bed beside Caleb. 

“It’s really hot, you know?” Caleb said as Paul reached for his open suitcase and pulled a roll of condoms out. “Having someone like you, you’re so much bigger and stronger than I am, and you tell me you’ll do anything for me, but only if I want it.” 

“That’s what love is supposed to be about,” Paul said seriously, simply, and Caleb felt a sudden rash joy build up in his chest, grinned as he took the condoms out of Paul’s hands. 

“Lust too,” said Caleb as he tore a condom off the roll, and they laughed briefly at that. Caleb ripped the packet open and pulled the condom out, bit down on his own lip in slight apprehension. “May I touch you?” he asked, suddenly uncertain. 

“Yes,” Paul said. “Pass me the lube.” Caleb watched Paul pump a generous dollop of lubricant into the palm of his hand, studied the flutter of his eyelashes, the way that sensual mouth parted as he began to slick himself up, fucking his greased fist for a stroke, and then a second. “That’s good,” he murmured, and then he lay back and favored Caleb with a wicked smile. 

Caleb pinched down on the reservoir tip of the condom, rolled the slippery latex sheath down Paul’s cock, and he followed it down with his fingers, squeezing gently as he savored the heat and pulse of Paul’s blood and flesh. It wasn’t hard for Caleb to appreciate how nicely Paul’s thick cock fit in his hand, his fingers ghostly-pale against that dark blood-flushed skin, and he was rewarded with a low groan and a reflexive thrust upwards as Paul shivered into his touch. There it was again, that sense of power and control that had exhilarated Caleb so much when he realized that Paul wanted him, wanted to be marked, wanted to be his. 

“What do I do now?” Caleb asked, slowing his movements slightly as he kissed Paul along the collarbones, on the smooth muscle of his chest. 

“Roll over,” Paul murmured in his ear, “and pass me the lube again.” Caleb did as he was told, and then he gasped, shivered and giggled at the slight shock as Paul spread cold lubricant over the soft skin of his inner thighs. The bed creaked as Paul shifted his weight, and then Caleb felt the warmth and solidity of Paul’s chest against his back, ground instinctively back against the heat of Paul’s cock against his ass. “Hold still for a moment,” Paul said, as he eased his thick cock between Caleb’s lube-slick thighs with a barely-audible sigh of delight. “Now just hold your knees together,” Paul told him, and then he was panting into the soft hair at the nape of Caleb’s neck as he began to thrust in earnest. 

“Touch me,” Caleb whispered as Paul rocked up against him, felt Paul’s slippery fingers spread low over his belly. He reached down and grasped Paul’s hard wrist and guided his hand lower, and then grunted in satisfaction as Paul began to stroke him in rhythm to his heavy thrusts. 

“You’re getting hard in my hand,” Paul breathed, “do you want me to finish you?” 

“Yeah,” Caleb panted, “as long as Heisenberg cooperates this time.” He felt Paul’s chest shake as they both shared a small laugh, and then decided to stop thinking when Paul found the sensitive spot just below the head of his cock and squeezed just hard enough to make him squirm. 

They gasped and shuddered against each other, and Caleb found himself liking the insistent thrust of Paul’s cock between his thighs. It made it easier for him to concentrate on his own arousal, and he had begun rocking himself backwards in anticipation of Paul’s movements between every stroke. “I’m close,” Paul whispered shakily against the back of Caleb’s head, “so close,” and he was bucking so hard against Caleb’s ass, the head of his cock nudging the crease of Caleb’s scrotum, that the bed had begun to creak loudly. 

Caleb would normally have been mortified by the noise they were now making, but he was too close to the brink to care. He only whimpered incoherently as Paul brushed one big thumb over the slit of his meatus, smeared more lubricant and pre-ejaculate into the sensitive skin of his glans. “Paul,” Caleb gasped, bit down on his own lip in an effort to silence himself as he tipped over the edge, coming hard in messy spurts over Paul’s wicked fingers. 

“Caleb,” Paul groaned, _“Caleb,”_ and then he too was shuddering as his orgasm overtook him, his hips twitching as his sheathed cock pulsed against the skin of Caleb’s inner thighs. 

They lay silently against each other for a few minutes afterwards, unable to do more than just catch their breath, and this was good too, the tension in their bodies slackening in the fuzz of the afterglow. “What I really don’t want to do,” Caleb said after he was able to speak coherently again, “is figure out how to get cleaned up without having to tiptoe naked across the hall for the bathroom.” 

“You won’t have to tiptoe across the hall,” Paul murmured in his ear with a soft huff of laughter. “I packed some wet wipes. Those’ll have to do until we get to the shower.” 

“And by we you mean me, because I’m not sure I want to shower with you while your mom’s in the house. What we just did is one thing, but bathroom acoustics tend to amplify sound.” 

“You’re right, I don’t,” Paul said, before he planted a soft kiss on the back of Caleb’s head, “it’s almost impossible for me to keep my hands off you.” 


	2. Gygax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is more sweet nerd love as Paul runs a game of Dungeons and Dragons for Caleb and his mother's bridge group, and later, sweet nerd smut as Elizabeth contrives to give them some privacy, and succeeds.

Paul stood by the sink, his sleeves rolled up over his elbows as he helped his mother scrub the pots and pans. The dinner dishes were in the dishwasher, and its slushy rumble filled her kitchen as they worked. Dinner had gone well — very well, actually. His mom wasn’t as good a cook as Caleb’s aunt Jennifer, but Paul had missed her cooking, and her meatloaf in particular. _Take a dozen households,_ he thought, _and they probably all make their meatloaf with subtle differences._ He knew just enough to make his own meatloaf, but it never turned out like his mother’s, no matter how many notes he took, or how exactingly he replicated her recipe. 

Caleb was in the bathroom luxuriating in a hot shower, which left Paul alone with his mother. It was good timing, but then they had planned it, he and Caleb, so that he could have a polite chat with his mom in private. 

“Mom,” Paul said as he scraped the crust off a glass loaf pan with the back of a table knife, applied the scrubber to the residue that was left, “we need to talk.” 

Elizabeth Sevier paused as she rinsed the saucepan she had mulled cider in, tilted her head to look at Paul. “What about, honey?” Her gaze was still warm and content, but there was a hint of tension in the set of her shoulders. The tap continued running, water sluicing down the saucepan, before she remembered to turn it off and put the pot on the sideboard to dry. 

“Well,” Paul sucked in a deep breath, feeling heat creep up his neck, “Caleb and I really appreciate how you’ve tried to make us comfortable, so thank you. But I think you went a little too far with the stuff you left on the nightstand.” 

“Oh.” Elizabeth looked so deflated that Paul wanted to hug her, soapy hands, scrubber and all, but he did not. She was wearing a nice sweater tonight, and he would never hear the end of it if he messed it up. 

“We’re not upset, Mom,” Paul continued. He handed the loaf pan over to her, paused himself before tackling the casserole dish where the macaroni and cheese had been earlier. Crusted with burned-on cheese, it would take a distracting amount of elbow grease to scrape off. “It’s just that, it’s that this is Caleb’s first relationship with a man. He’s still getting used to things, and I think he’s uncomfortable with you knowing anything about our sex life. It’s a boundary thing, you know?”

“It made me uncomfortable too, you know, standing in the shop waiting for someone to ask me if I needed help,” Elizabeth admitted, “but I thought it was worth it to try to show you two how much I supported you.” She picked up the loaf pan and began rinsing it off. “I guess I went too far.” 

“I know you’re supportive, Mom,” Paul said. It was as though his heart was swelling with an abundance of happiness, enough of it to leave him slightly choked and breathless. “You don’t need to prove it, really. And Caleb appreciates it, too.” He rinsed his hands, picked up the casserole dish, and sprinkled Bar Keepers Friend all over it. 

“You sounded so happy on the phone when you told me he was coming to Chicago,” Elizabeth said. She put the glass loaf pan up on the sideboard and waited patiently for Paul to be done with the casserole dish. “I guess I wanted to show you both how glad it made to see you this content.” 

“You don’t have to,” Paul said between brief applications of elbow grease, “we can see it in your face, Mom. In the cider and peppermint bark and the dinner you cooked.” The crust ringing the dish was coming off slowly but surely, bit by bit as he rubbed the oxalic acid powder against the baked-on cheese. 

“I’m sorry I overdid things,” Elizabeth said.

“Thank you, Mom,” said Paul, as he handed the scrubbed casserole dish over to her. “And it’s okay. This is such a small thing that you don’t even need forgiving.” He watched her rinse it off, then appropriated the tap and washed the soap off his hands. His mother waited until he had finished drying his hands on a kitchen towel, and then she wrapped her arms around his sides and leaned into him for a long, tight hug. 

“I’m so proud of you, hon,” Elizabeth murmured against his chest, “I always will be.”

“I know, Mom,” Paul said, and he did. 

***

Caleb decided to brave the frigid Chicago outdoors again, mostly at Paul’s gentle insistence. That and he genuinely wanted to see the city outside of Elizabeth Sevier’s cosy apartment. He had wrapped himself up as warmly as he could — long thermal underwear under his jeans, t-shirt, sweater and coat, and a woolen hat and scarf to keep his face from freezing off, and Paul had taken him on a small tour of his surviving college hangouts. 

Caleb was utterly unsurprised at their itinerary. A used bookstore, a quirky little cafe, and best of all, the game store. Caleb grinned as they stepped out of the cold into the place, crowded with geeks and nerds. It was a familiar sight to Caleb, the people with elaborately painted miniature armies and tape measures, yet others with decks of Magic cards, and he had to shake his head ruefully at the amount of money he had spent on cardboard crack in his high school years. The cards were still somewhere in his aunts’ house, and he wondered about digging them up and trying to sell the rares on eBay, since he didn’t play any more. 

“This isn’t the first game shop I set foot in,” Paul murmured, soft and nostalgic under the hubbub of voices, “the old place shut down, and I’m not surprised it did. This one’s a lot better.”

“Don’t tell me,” Caleb asked, thinking back to the geek stereotypes, “no girls allowed, now let’s ogle badly drawn women on the covers of crappy comics and complain why nobody will date us?” 

“Well, my first games weren’t like that,” Paul said, his gaze distant and faraway, “I learned to play D&D from my 7th grade math teacher, Mr. Kinsky. He’d run red box D&D with the kind of dice that had to be crayoned in, as a reward for sticking with remedial sessions. That’s when I really caught my math bug, I think. Women were totally welcome at his table, since Mrs. Kinsky played, too, and she was a terrifying munchkin.”

 _And that’s where mathematicians come from,_ Caleb thought, amused at Paul’s introduction to gaming. “You need to be able to crunch numbers to min-max your character properly, right?” he asked, teasing gently. 

Paul nodded once, pressed a brief kiss to Caleb’s cheek, “Or play Champions. But yeah, the old place was actively offensive to a good swath of humanity, including people with a working sense of smell. I wouldn’t have braved it myself, but there were so many good games on the shelves…” Paul trailed off and gestured vaguely at the shelves of rulebooks and board games in this clean, well-lit store.

Caleb felt his eyes stinging a little as he thought to the vulnerability of that one public kiss, in a setting that was as often homophobic as not, and his heart thumped hard in his chest, exhilaration and nerves leaving him dizzy. “I’m lucky Portland’s sort of a geek nirvana to grow up in, I guess, although I played a lot more Magic in middle and high school. More portable.” 

“I would’ve, but money was tight after Mom got divorced,” Paul said, “and in the long run a single core book is cheaper than what you’d need to spend to build a tournament-viable deck, especially if you use your imagination instead of buying supplements. Plus browsing is free.” 

“I’ll say. I don’t have much old school cred, though,” Caleb picked up a heavy tome at random and leafed through it, admiring the colorful art within. “First tabletop RPG I played was Pathfinder, and of course I played a complete murderhobo. We all were. Adventures were just an excuse to slay stuff and loot treasure.” 

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” said Paul. “Sometimes you don’t want a long and angsty set-piece about being a vampire, you just want to blow off steam.” 

*** 

Paul sipped at his hot chocolate and watched Caleb go through his shiny new purchases; a copy of the Player’s Handbook for the latest edition of D&D, several sets of colorful, sparkly or shimmery polyhedral dice, and a scale mail dice bag. The last item was particularly impressive-looking, gleaming bronze and pewter under the cafe’s warm-hued lights. Paul had not bought anything himself. Most of his current gaming book collection was in .pdf format, which made it easier to store and carry, and he had so many dice he had resorted to keeping them in a large glass bowl on his dinette table. 

“Wow,” Caleb murmured as he read, “bards are really badass now.”

“Yeah, they get 9th level spells in this edition.” Paul grinned at Caleb’s excitement. This was the best thing about tabletop gaming, he felt, watching someone else geek out unabashedly. 

“Now I wish I lived in Baltimore so you could run a game for me,” Caleb said, and the thought of that sent a thrill down Paul’s spine, tingling to his toes and fingertips. It wasn’t their fault, really, but none of his exes had been interested in things like Dungeons and Dragons. The ones who did game preferred console or PC games instead, and while Skyrim was fun, it was not a replacement for an evening spent rolling dice and joking with friends in person. 

“I’m rusty,” said Paul, after an awkward pause, “I haven’t really been running anything because I had to travel so much, but things are different now.” His circumstances had changed. Most of the next year was going to be packed with legal and policy legwork, and he didn’t expect to travel as much as he had when he had been working at Fort Meade. 

Caleb closed the hardcover Player’s Handbook and took a nibble of his New York-style cheesecake, smiled shyly. That shy smile went straight to Paul’s heart, as it always did. “How’s about we go apartment-hunting after this vacation is over? I like what I’ve seen of your current place, but I don’t know if it’ll be able to hold the both of us long-term, plus I still want to adopt Antler.” Antler was a retired racing greyhound that Caleb had talked about adopting — he had mentioned wanting a dog several times over the two months of their long-distance courtship.

“She’s still up for adoption?” Paul asked stupidly. His ability to speak coherently was diminishing rapidly when confronted with the ridiculous, delightful reality that Caleb _wanted_ to live with him. His chest felt a little tight, and he made himself take a deep breath so he wouldn’t start hyperventilating from sheer joy. 

“Well, she technically isn’t any more,” Caleb’s smile widened, matching the one Paul felt on his own face, “because I’ve done all the paperwork to adopt her, she’s just living with her foster parents until the end of the year because I had this trip coming up.” 

Paul took a deep breath to slow his racing pulse, wondered how life had gone this right in such a short time. Two months and change ago he had been on yet another joint task force, exhausted and with his morale in the crapper as he watched himself get shut out of his own agency. It was though everything had changed for the better once he had met Caleb Smith. The skeptical side of his brain muttered on about how coincidences were just that. The slightly more credulous side of his brain reminded him that he had seen the impossible happen — and besides, happiness wasn’t impossible if you kept your eyes open and seized it as it went by. 

“I don’t know if I can even express how happy you make me, Caleb,” Paul breathed. He picked up his mug of hot chocolate and took another sip, let its warmth run down his gullet and settle in his belly. “Yes. I’d love to go apartment-hunting with you.”

“Good,” Caleb said, his eyes suddenly very bright, “that’s very good.” 

***

Paul and Caleb wandered around downtown Chicago for an hour more, and then headed back to the warm haven of Elizabeth Sevier’s home to find the couch and armchair already occupied by three other women. The four of them had been gossiping cheerfully over cups of coffee and a plate of cookies, and then fallen silent as Paul entered the living room with Caleb behind him.

“I forgot,” Paul murmured to Caleb just after he shut the door behind them, “tonight is bridge night.” 

“Oh,” Caleb said, feeling just a little intimidated by all those friendly, curious stares, “should we head back out?” 

“What? No, don’t leave on our account,” one of the women said. 

“Yes,” Elizabeth Sevier said, “pull up some chairs and sit with us, the both of you. Everyone, this is Caleb, Paul’s boyfriend. Caleb, these are my friends, Valerie, Barbara and Emmy.” They were all white middle-aged women of the type Caleb associated with casseroles and church bake sales — that is, down-to-earth and experienced enough that they had run out of fucks to give. Odd to think that he didn’t think of his aunts Jennifer and Sharon as that kind of lady despite the similar ages, but then he really couldn’t imagine most of these women being comfortable marching in a pride parade. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” Caleb said, his pulse spiking somewhat as a very old reflex kicked in. He had somehow flashbacked to family reunions, cheek-pinching grand-aunts and all. He felt a gentle hand on his arm, and turned to see Paul, who had pulled out one of the chairs at the dining table for him. Caleb sat, and then Paul was pulling his own chair up to close the informal circle. 

“We were just talking about what to do tonight,” Elizabeth Sevier said as she got up to pour two more cups of coffee. 

“You’re not going to play bridge like usual?” Paul asked his mother as he lowered himself onto the chair, his long legs folding easily beneath him, heel against the instep of his other foot, both tucked under the chair seat. 

“We could, but that would leave you two out, and nobody here wants to do that, especially since it’s been so long since we’ve all seen you, Paul,” Elizabeth said. Caleb put his purchases down so he could accept the cup from her, thanked her in a murmur. 

“Hm.” Paul glanced at Caleb over the rim of his own coffee cup, his expression serious at first, then turning mischievous. _Is he going to say what I think he might say?_ Caleb wondered. 

“I could run a game of Dungeons and Dragons,” said Paul. _My God, he just said it,_ Caleb thought. “What do you think?”

“Ooh,” Barbara said, pushing her wire-framed glasses up her nose, “my son-in-law plays games like that, but I don’t know the rules at all.” 

Paul shrugged her hesitation off. “I could just make preset characters for you, and you can pick the ones you like? Then I’ll just run an introduction game, a one-shot.”

“Now that sounds interesting,” said Emmy, and Valerie, sitting beside her, nodded.

“You’ve got the rulebook, Caleb, could you please pass it around so everyone can have a look at it?” 

“Okay,” Caleb said, a smile creeping onto his face as Paul’s infectious enthusiasm took root. It was nice to see people getting excited, even if he wasn’t sure how well these nice middle-aged ladies would take to shooting fictional orcs with crossbows. 

“Oh, it’s like _The Lord of the Rings,_ ” Emmy exclaimed as she flipped through the pages of the player’s handbook. “Elves and halflings.”

“I’m going to pull my chair back to the table, Mom, and get my laptop,” Paul said after a few quiet moments watching his new players admire the artwork in the player’s handbook, “It’ll probably take me some time to get ready, and I’ll have to use your printer.” 

“Oh, of course,” Elizabeth beamed, “you’re the one who’s smart about computers here.” 

***

As it turned out, Caleb was utterly wrong in his assessment of Elizabeth Sevier and her bridge-playing friends. He had worried that they might not have enjoyed the violence involved in roleplaying a group of adventurers, but there they were, cutting down kobolds as though they had been born to do so. It didn’t upset him that he had assumed wrongly, but they took to hacking and slashing so well that it was starting to make him nervous. 

“You all see the yawning entrance of a mine,” Paul narrated in his best radio voice, “and from it drifts the wet-dog smell of kobolds. What are you going to do?” 

“I vote that we should take a rest before we go in,” Valerie said, “so that we’re prepared to fight whatever’s in there. I need to get my spells back. We have to rest to do that, right?” Valerie put her reading glasses back on and studied the pregenerated character sheet that Paul had made up for her use.

“Correct,” said Paul, with a certain amount of relish. He sipped at his coffee while waiting for the rest of the party to answer.

“But we shouldn’t be resting right in front of the mine,” Emmy said, “I mean, what if those little monsters come out and try to eat us in our sleep?” Emmy had taken to D&D very well — her familiarity with Tolkien via _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ had primed her adequately, and she played her elven ranger with an amusing seriousness, having given the character, her sword, and her horse flowery names. 

“No, we probably shouldn’t,” Caleb agreed. His cleric was feeling a little seedy at this point, having caught several arrows on the way to the mine, from sheer bad luck. An ambush could doom them.

“What about you, Mom, Barbara?” Paul asked nudging the both of them out of their indecision. 

“Let’s see,” Elizabeth said, “I think it would be a good idea to rest, but I think my barbarian thinks differently. He puffs out his chest and yells, ‘Kronar doesn’t need rest like civilized people! Kronar’s people can fight all the time, day or night!’”

That brought a laugh to the table — Elizabeth’s roleplaying was becoming a highlight of the game, because she played Kronar as a somewhat self-absorbed asshole obsessed with preening and proving his manliness. 

“Well, my rogue is going to tell Kronar,” Barbara replied, “‘We’re not out in barbarian-land, and you’re outvoted anyway, so we’ll have to take a break.’ And then I try to pick his pocket while he’s busy pounding on his pecs.”

“You’re going to have a problem with that,” Elizabeth countered. “Kronar doesn’t have pockets. Just that animal skin he wears around his waist. Kronar raises his eyebrows at Littlefoot and leers a bit. ‘Like what you find, little halfling?’ he asks.”

“Ewww!” The table broke out in collective laughter again, and Caleb nearly choked on a mouthful of coffee. He put his cup down and swallowed hard.

“Well,” Barbara said, a wicked gleam growing in her eye, “I’m going to tell Kronar, ‘Actually, no, I’ve felt larger ones. On other halflings.’”

There was more laughter, and Paul’s head dipped low as he pushed his chair back and doubled over, clutching his stomach. “Okay,” he said after a few desperate giggles, “okay, let’s just cut that off right now before it gets too awkward.” He wheezed again, made himself straighten up with an effort of will, and took his glasses off to wipe the tears off his face. “You all agree to take a rest, except for Kronar, who’s still grumbling softly to himself. Eluthiel knows the woods, so she finds a safe place for you to rest not too far from the mine full of kobolds. You’re hidden by some dense undergrowth and you should be fine if you don’t light a fire. Who takes first watch?” 

Caleb had been about to suggest something when the doorbell rang. “Pizza’s here,” he said. Caleb had spent enough of his life programming all night and then ordering delivery for dinner, and the doorbell acted upon his appetite like Pavlov’s famous bell did. His belly growled, softly. 

“All right. Discuss this among yourselves,” Paul said as he stood up, “and I’ll get the door.” 

***

“So what do you think of Chicago-style deep dish pizza?” Paul asked Caleb as they sat on the couch side by side. They were relaxed, alone, as Paul’s mother had gone out for a late supper with her friends after the D&D game had concluded. Paul understood why she had chosen to do so, despite her lack of explanation. She was trying to give them some privacy in an effort to correct her excessive enthusiasm yesterday, and he appreciated it greatly. 

“It’s really nice for what it is,” Caleb said, yawning softly as he ran his hand up Paul’s arm, squeezing gently through the sleeve of his shirt, “but it’s not pizza.”

“Yes it is,” Paul said with mock seriousness. Caleb had spent enough time living in Long Island to have a rather exact idea of what he considered pizza, specifically, New York-style pizza, with a tangy sauce tomato-based sauce, a pliable, foldable crust with a thick, crisp edge. It wasn’t as though Paul loathed New York’s variation on pizza, but he felt vaguely blasphemous about the notion of not eating deep dish pizza while he was here in Chicago.

“No, it’s a casserole,” Caleb disagreed with gentle stubbornness, “you Midwesterners are so weird.” It was warm and comfortable here on the couch, and warmer still where Caleb’s side pressed against Paul’s, and Paul could not sustain his pizza argument when faced with Caleb’s contented slouch.

“At least we’re in Chicago,” said Paul, thinking of the other highlights of Midwestern cuisine. “You might have to eat lutefisk if we were out in Minnesota.”

“Ugh,” Caleb said, with a faint shudder, and then Paul was leaning into him, pulling him closer for a long, indulgent kiss. Caleb’s breath was still freighted with garlic from the pizza sauce, but Paul didn’t care. He nibbled softly at Caleb’s soft lower lip, shivered as Caleb ran careful fingers through his hair to tease his scalp gently with the tips of his nails.

“Would you like to fuck me, tonight?” Paul asked Caleb slightly breathlessly, after they parted for air, and he closed his eyes briefly in silent appreciation as Caleb shuddered eagerly under his touch. 

“Sure,” Caleb said, exaggeratedly casual despite the avidity in his gaze. “If it works out that way.” 

“If it works out that way,” Paul agreed, before he pressed his face against Caleb’s neck, biting lightly on his salty skin, savoring the throb of Caleb’s pulse against his lips. “You can bite me as much as you want to tonight,” he continued, his voice slightly muffled against Caleb’s skin, “we’re alone here and there’s nobody to care about how much noise we make.” 

Paul did not quite anticipate what happened next. Caleb grabbed at his shirt collar with a little growl and pushed him backwards onto his back, shifted to half-straddle him on the couch. “I’ve been wanting to do this for two months and change,” Caleb said, panting softly in excitement, before he pressed his wet willing mouth to the underside of Paul’s chin, let the warmth of his kisses wander along his sharp jawline and the length of his neck. 

Caleb’s kisses and the old lumpy couch brought Paul back to his high school days — he had been too afraid to express interest in anyone until he left home for college, but there was a part of him that had wished fiercely to live the life straight teenagers took for granted. His heart lurched in his chest and he trembled as Caleb nipped at his earlobe. 

“I never had the chance to do this in high school,” Paul murmured as Caleb leaned into him, breath hot against his neck. “You’re making my dreams come true.” 

Caleb paused and lifted his head to study Paul’s face, his leaf-green eyes bright with affection and lust. “You never went out with anyone in high school?” he asked, understanding showing in his flushed narrow face.

“I was too scared to,” Paul said. They were now lying chest to chest, hearts thumping in a syncopation of excitement and need, and he shut his eyes as Caleb kissed him again on the mouth. “So no, I never got to make out with someone on my mom’s couch.” 

“You told me it’s never too late. As long as you’re alive there’s still a chance,” Caleb said after he pulled away, and Paul could not help himself; he reached up to smooth Caleb’s hair over his skull, let his fingers splay over that gorgeous red-tinged gold. 

“Yes,” Paul whispered, “ _yes_ ,” as Caleb ground delightfully up against him. They kissed again and again, gasping at how good this felt even through frustrating layers of clothing, and Paul let Caleb pluck the glasses off his face and leave them on the coffee table, so he could kiss Paul on the eyelids and the bridge of the nose, the middle of his brow. They paced themselves slowly, deliberately, letting sensation build atop sensation until they were both ablaze with pleasure and desire alike. 

“We should probably move to the bedroom,” Caleb whispered in Paul’s ear as he rutted eagerly against his hip, left another nip on the side of his neck, “I don’t want to leave a mess on your mom’s couch, I’d be a shitty guest if I did.” 

“Mhm.” Paul had slid both his hands up Caleb’s long-sleeved t-shirt to ruck up his thermal undershirt, and Caleb’s skin was hot and damp under his searching fingers, the bumps of his spine in low relief under his flesh. “You’re right,” he managed to say, pulling himself reluctantly away, “it’ll be more comfortable in bed.” 

*** 

Caleb wasn’t sure how he’d gotten to the bedroom and managed to keep all his clothes on, and he was a little too busy to care now as he tumbled onto the creaking bed with Paul beneath him. He was harder than he’d managed to be for the past two months, despite the effects his medications had on his libido, and he was desperate and eager enough to ache sweetly from it. 

Paul made a small sound that went straight to Caleb’s balls, zinging up his spine as Caleb popped a button off his shirt in his haste. “Sorry,” Caleb whispered in his ear, “I’ll fix it later. I know basic mending.” 

“That’s fine,” Paul breathed, his voice catching in his throat as Caleb palmed the sensitive underside of his cock through his trousers, “it’s okay, as long as you don’t stop doing this.” 

“Am I doing okay?” Caleb asked, and was rewarded with a desperate nod as Paul reached up to gently hold his face, tugged him down for another kiss. 

“You don’t hear me complaining,” Paul managed to say, a small whine entering his voice as Caleb pulled his shirt open and rucked the hem of his undershirt up, and then he made the most delightful moan when Caleb bent his head to the skin of his hard belly. Caleb worked his way slowly upwards, making Paul shiver and squirm in turns. 

Paul Sevier was a beautiful man, but he looked amazing in the dim light of the bedroom with his dark hair tousling on the pillow beneath his head, his dark eyes half-shut, blissed-out and debauched. A bruise was already blooming on the side of his neck, high up where the bone of his lower jaw gave way to the soft, vulnerable flesh beneath his earlobe, and desire shot through Caleb like a jolt of lightning. To have his lover at his disposal like this — Caleb wasn’t currently coherent enough to unpack why it turned him on so much, so he threw himself wholly into sensation and need. 

“How should we do this?” Caleb asked Paul after they had managed to remove most of their clothes. Paul’s trousers hung low on his hips, his boxers tugged low to expose his magnificent cock, slick and dripping with pre-ejaculate. “How do you want me to fuck you?” 

“Help me get the rest of this off,” Paul said, and Caleb was only glad to help, managed to shrug his own jeans and thermal underwear off — he was almost stifled in this warmth, overheating — and kicked them to the floor, and then he was climbing back into bed on top of Paul, naked as the day he was born. Caleb felt a faint pang of self-consciousness shoot through him, realized that the scars on his back were now easily visible with the lights on. It was good then, that the bedside lamp was dim, and the glow focused on Paul’s flushed face. It was so much easier to concentrate on his own desire like this. 

“You’re gorgeous,” Caleb whispered to Paul, and then they were both laughing quietly together, for the sheer joy of it. 

“So are you,” Paul breathed, and Caleb pressed his forehead to Paul’s, quietly appreciative of his words. “You look so outwardly fragile, but you’re so tough, and you’re so much stronger than you think.” 

“Strong enough to fuck you senseless?” Caleb asked, teasing him gently. 

“Definitely.” Caleb drew himself up on his knees to give Paul room so he could reach over to the nightstand for the condoms and lubricant. “Move over,” Paul said as he squeezed a puddle of lube into the palm of his hand, and then he was drawing his knees high to expose the soft skin of his scrotum, the pink bud of his asshole. Caleb watched as Paul smeared himself with lube, and then his strong fingers were working themselves impatiently up his ass. This eagerness took Caleb’s breath away, stunned him at how raw and vulnerable Paul was leaving himself in this intimate moment.

And yet it felt right. It took someone strong and certain of who they were to allow others to come close to the core of their selves, into their emotional world, and wasn’t that what Paul had done with Caleb from the moment they first met? That was why Caleb had fallen in love with him in the first place, and the intensity of his emotion choked him, almost, left him breathlessly dizzy as Paul groaned and panted against his own hand. 

“Can I try?” Caleb asked Paul, teasing him briefly with little touches. A tweak of his nipple, a feather-light touch along the sensitive ridge on the underside of his cock. 

“Please,” Paul breathed through his wet mouth, pupils blown with lust. “I want you to touch me.” 

Caleb picked the bottle of lube off the bed and squeezed it onto his fingers, waited for it to warm up against his skin as Paul pulled his own hand slowly away from himself. His asshole was now slick with lube, gaping just a little, glistening obscenely in the low light, and Caleb shut his eyes at the sensation as he slid his fingers into Paul. 

There was the tightness he expected, a thin elastic tension as his fingertips pushed past the outer sphincter. Paul sucked in a long, shuddery breath as he made himself relax, and Caleb found his fingers sliding hotly up the gape of his asshole.

“You’re so fucking soft,” Caleb said, wondering at the velvety softness he found up Paul’s ass, the sheer blood-heat of him. “And so hot.” 

“More,” Paul begged, arching to grind himself against Caleb’s hand, and then Caleb was pushing harder, until he felt a small, smooth bump under his fingertips. He curled his fingers experimentally and grinned, felt his own cock twitch eagerly at the sound Paul made in response. 

“Am I doing this right?” Caleb asked Paul, despite being very sure from Paul’s reaction that he was. It just excited him to hear Paul say it, to listen to the desperate break in his voice as he started to lose control. 

“Yes,” Paul groaned again, “don’t stop, please, _oh, Caleb._ ” Paul was relaxing, melting almost as Caleb drew small careful circles over the bump of his prostate, and he reached up to play with his own nipples, pinching down on one of them with large fingers as he arched into Caleb’s careful attentions, his hips bucking helplessly. 

“You’re going to feel so good when I’m in you,” Caleb marveled, paused to give his own neglected cock a squeeze with his free hand. He was at the point where his balls were aching, and he wasn’t sure how long he could keep this teasing up without granting himself some kind of relief.

“You will,” Paul agreed breathlessly. “I want you. I want all of you in me.” That hit Caleb like an electric shock, a jolt low in his belly as his cock twitched in response. 

“I’m not as big as you are, though,” Caleb said. He wasn’t usually self-conscious about his own endowment, but Paul’s size intimidated him somewhat, made him wonder if his own cock would be adequate for something this important. 

“That doesn’t matter. Really.” Paul bit down on his lower lip as Caleb pulled his fingers out, fought a whimper against the sensation. “Do you want to do this bareback?” Paul asked him, and Caleb started trembling once he realized what Paul meant. “I haven’t seen anyone in a while, and I’ve tested clean the whole time.” 

“What if I come too fast?” Caleb asked him, shivering from his own desire, from the that intimacy Paul was offering him unasked-for, the absolute trust and love in his eyes. 

“That’s also okay. There are so many other ways to make love if you do,” Paul whispered. Caleb could not answer, not with words, and he kissed Paul softly, ardently again, reached down with his lube-slick hand to stroke Paul’s big cock slowly and lovingly. Paul keened against Caleb’s mouth in response, thrusting up into Caleb’s touch. 

“Slow down,” Caleb whispered. He picked up the lube bottle again and pumped some more onto the palm of his hand, rubbed it in cold against the heated skin of his cock. The slipperiness felt very good, and he thought of how Paul had brought him off last night, how he had come into Paul’s lube-slick fist. 

“Please,” Paul said, his voice barely audible now. His eyes were almost black in the dim light, pupils huge from arousal and frustration. “Come inside me,” he begged. He drew his knees towards his chest as Caleb shifted to kneel between his legs, and Caleb pushed gently back at his thighs as he lined his cock up with Paul’s asshole. 

It wasn’t as though Caleb hadn’t done this before — he’d had an ex who didn’t mind taking him anally — but this was the first time he had penetrated someone bare. He let out a long, shuddery breath, his teeth chattering in his head as he tilted his head back and ground himself slowly against the obscene heat of Paul’s asshole. “Fuck,” he managed to breathe, held himself very still.

“Do you like me?” Paul asked, almost shyly, “Do you like having your cock in me?” 

“Yes,” Caleb said, drew himself back for an experimental thrust, “yes, you feel _so good._ ” Each gliding stroke was exquisite, that unbelievable tightness he encountered with the outer and inner sphincters giving way to a softness like velvet, caressing his sensitive cock so sweetly. The both of them had run out of words to say, communicating only with gasps and shivers, with long panting whimpers, and there was a part of Caleb’s mind that marveled at the effect he was having at Paul, at how all this strength and beauty was his, utterly _his_ to possess for the moment. 

They fell into rhythm together, and Paul wrapped his long legs around Caleb’s waist, drawing him deeper in with each thrust. Caleb shuddered, whimpered in pleasure, but he kept going. It was as though he was reaching a plateau in his arousal and wasn’t quite going over the edge. This was something that had happened before with his meds, but he appreciated it this time, if only because he was fairly sure he would have come within the first minute of this fuck if this side effect hadn’t reared its head. He wanted so badly not to disappoint Paul in their first time together. 

Paul, for his part, only gasped his assent, his delight at his ravishment as Caleb plunged into him again and again, deeper and more urgent with each stroke. “You’re perfect,” he managed to breathe into Caleb’s ear as they panted together, “your cock is so good like this,” and Caleb shivered in delight at the effect he was having on Paul. He could feel his own need building in the base of his spine, in the sweet ache of his balls, but still he was not coming, and he growled low in his frustration and fucked Paul all the harder.

“Will you come for me?” Caleb asked Paul, each word gasped out between thrusts, “will you come on my cock?” 

“Yes,” Paul said hoarsely, groaned as Caleb reached down to stroke his cock mercilessly. Caleb kept his hand tight on the downstroke, relaxing a little as he pulled up, teasing Paul with roughness and gentleness alternately. The both of them were somehow connected with an electric charge of desire, their movements synchronized perfectly, and Paul reached up to grab the pillow beneath his head, threw his head back as he howled long and low in relief. 

Paul’s cock beat, pulsing against Caleb’s palm as he came, spending himself messily over his own chest and belly, and Caleb’s palm and fingers besides. Caleb found himself thrusting fast and desperate as Paul tensed eagerly up around him, and then he was falling, falling forever against the wet-velvet heaven of Paul’s asshole. His orgasm seemed to take him like a seizure, like a lion sinking its teeth into the back of his neck, and he slammed himself hard into Paul to come in long, aching spasms deep inside the heat of his body. 

It took them a minute or two to catch their breath, and a few minutes more to recover the ability to speak, and it was Paul who spoke first, his voice fuzzy and still slightly hoarse in the flush of his afterglow. “That was amazing,” he breathed softly, and nuzzled the top of Caleb’s sweat-damp head, inhaling deeply of the salt and musk of Caleb’s skin. 

Caleb did not pull away even though they were starting to stick to each other as spunk and lube dried in the air, only sighed softly and contentedly. “I’m glad you liked it. I was actually having some trouble coming, and I was worried I was going to rupture something trying.” The world was still swimming liquid around him, and he was fairly sure he did not want to try to stand in the next two or three minutes.

“Mm,” Paul hummed softly. “Your meds again?” 

“Yeah,” Caleb said, fighting a yawn as endorphins spread hot through his nerves, leaving him drowsy and content and feeling too comfortable to want to move right now. 

“Well, I can’t complain right now,” Paul said. “I still can’t feel my legs, and you’ve left me a little raw. No —“ he said as Caleb looked up, alarmed, “don’t worry, it’s a good kind of sore.” 

“Is this where I write up a satisfaction survey for you to fill in?” Caleb laughed a little tiredly. 

“Only if you want to be formal about it,” Paul murmured against Caleb’s hair, his warm breath cooling rapidly against damp skin, “but you don’t have to. You were very good.” 

“Good,” Caleb sighed, as he rolled slowly off Paul to lie on his back. The air was pleasantly cool against his overheated skin, and he sucked in a long breath, let it out as his pulse slowed to something approaching normal. “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“There’s very little you can actually do that will disappoint me, Caleb. You’re just wonderful that way, and you don’t have to worry about that.” Paul’s hand closed on Caleb’s, and Caleb shut his eyes at the little touch, felt tiny tears of relief prick at his eyelids. 

“I just didn’t want to —“ Caleb tried to articulate himself properly, “I dunno, do badly, compared to one of your exes? I mean, this is the first time I’ve done this.” 

“And you were great,” Paul said in his calm, reassuring way, “so don’t worry.” They lay in silence for a few minutes more, bodies slackening as sleep began to encroach upon them, before Caleb twitched himself back to full wakefulness. 

“Mm. Can you feel your legs now?” he asked Paul. 

“A bit,” Paul said with a soft laugh, “why?” 

Caleb rolled over to look Paul in the eye, smiled at how relaxed he looked. “I’m thinking we should both get a shower and clean up before your mom comes home and finds us tiptoeing across the hall wearing only towels.”

“Good idea,” said Paul. “She won’t be back for another hour or so, so we can even use up all the hot water.”


End file.
